Life is good
by XXPay4XtraShippingsXX
Summary: I decided to try out a Portal fic! Basically the usual "Wheatley arrives in a human body magically from outer space HOORAY!" oneshot with a Chell that can now speak. In a bookstore/coffee shop. Yeah. Flames are for roasting chestnuts, not hurting my feelings. Thanks!


**Woow…why am I doing this again? I don't even play the games. Seriously, I didn't even know that there was even a plot or a female main character until, like…a week ago? Maybe a little longer. My sense of time is terrible.**

**WHATEVER! I decided to give it a try! Sorry if it's lame, or closely related to any other fic…sorry…**

Chell liked to think that she'd done pretty well on her own. After walking through the wheat fields for a while and being chased out by a number of farmers, she'd stumbled into a huge city. She would later learn that the place was called New Detroit. She did the first thing that came to mind: found a restaurant. The second thing was to find a job because it smelled really good in there and she didn't have any money. After realizing that a mute with no idea about her background had absolutely no chance in the big city, she found help. They listened to her story (well, read it) and were somehow persuaded that she wasn't a psycho. After that, she'd been given a legal name, fake history, speech therapy, and a bit of money to start off her new life. She started wearing her hair down and found that she liked wearing fedoras, and she got a nice wardrobe. Within a year she was an ordinary person, ready for the world.

Chell found a nice job in a large yet still cozy bookstore with a coffee shop inside of it. It became her ritual to arrive an hour before her shift and flip through her latest novel while sipping coffee and nibbling on a pastry. Sometimes she'd doodle in the notepad she used to use as her voice, since she couldn't give it up. It was silly, but she didn't really care. Life was good.

Not to say that she didn't think about her time in Aperture. It haunted her dreams (and her notepad), especially the time when her little robot friend Wheatley tried to murder her, driven by GLaDOS the potato.

Yep. Good times.

"Hey, Chell," said a familiar voice, snapping her out of her thoughts. The raven-haired girl swiveled around in her seat to see her boss.

"Hi, Diane. What's up?" Chell wouldn't have been surprised if Diane had wanted her to get to work early, as she had a lot of spare time during her little ritual breakfast. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Just wanted to let you know, you'll be working with the new employee at the cashier today. He's…a bit of a handful. Almost like he's never been inside a bookstore before…"

"It's cool, I've had my share of handfuls. I can totally manage," said Chell nonchalantly, returning to her book.

"Okay, thanks. Bye."

"Later."

When her shift began and she got to her destination, she awaited the new employee curiously as she got to work. She was a bit intrigued; how bad was he going to be?

"Um, hello." Chell looked up from her typing to see a blond, lanky man with brilliant blue eyes, obscured by slim black glasses. He was nervous and fumbling with his name tag, but she couldn't get a good look at the name. "I'm the new employee, this is where I was supposed to go, right? I'm rather new around here and I've been getting _terribly _lost, but suddenly I wound up in front of a store chock full of books and I've found I rather like reading, and then I saw a Help Wanted sign, and I thought, hmm, a job would be nice, so here I am! Oh, my, I'm rambling, aren't I, I tend to do that a lot, terribly sorry, I am, and if I do start to ramble, you don't need to worry about hurting my feelings if you stop me, no, in fact, it would be better if you did, would save me a lot of embarrassment, and right now I'm wondering why you aren't stopping me right now?"

Chell's eyebrows had raised and she had to suppress a chuckle. It was kind of adorable.

"Well, are you going to answer, or maybe you can't talk, I had a friend who couldn't talk, but, oh, I suppose I'm not really her friend anymore, I _did _try to—"

"Um, yeah, I can talk. Sorry. Well, yep, you are in the right place. Just stand right here, there ya go, and all you need to do is scan books and manage money. Think you can handle it?" she asked.

"I believe so," replied the man. He seemed about to say something else, but Chell interrupted him before he could start another comically long sentence.

"Well, pleased to have you here. I'm Chell, by the way," she said with a grin, sticking out her hand to shake. The man stared at her blankly. After a moment, she asked slowly, "Does that name mean something to you?"

"Well, yes, now that you mention it, it does, but what confused me was the gesture you made. A bit odd."

"It's called a handshake." Chell was getting concerned. This guy obviously didn't know a thing about being normal, almost as if he wasn't even _human. _She was also a bit…curious. Fumbling, British voice? A friend that was mute? What…this guy seemed just like…

"Oh. A, um, oh. We don't do that where I come from," he said nervously.

"In…England?"

"Um, yes! Exactly! I've never done a…handshake. We don't have those in England. Oh, you wanted my name, yes, it's Wheatley." Wheatley? Oh, Chell was convinced. This guy knew absolutely nothing about human society, and matched the robot's personality completely.

"Riiight," said the girl slowly. "Um, anyway, here's our first customer…" Her voice was a bit more shy sounding and shaky. If Wheatley noticed, he didn't say anything.

The rest of the day was mentally exhausting for poor Chell. She kept writing scenarios in her head on how she would reveal herself, but then she would cross it out mentally. No, this is too lame, no, he'll hate me if I say this. Then there was the fact that he'd tried to kill her. True, she'd already come to terms with it and firmly decided that it wasn't his fault, but it still haunted her. In addition, she had noticed that his human self was totally and undeniably _cute._ And his bumbling self was endearing and the way he just…_existed_…it made her sweaty and nervous like a schoolgirl. Stupid. And the fact that he kept messing up and asking her for help didn't really help either.

Finally, the work day ended. Chell was relieved, so relieved that she didn't even notice Wheatley hovering over her until she stood up and bumped into him. "Gyah!"

"Oh—sorry! Terribly sorry, I am, here, you dropped something…" said Wheatley, bending down to pick up her notepad, which had fallen open. "Eh? What's in here?"

Chell blushed, as the page showed a little doodle of a familiar metal friend of hers…the very one who was looking at her with his head tilted to one side. "N—nothing! Something I do in my spare time, haha, it's like a diary…with drawings…_that you don't look at!_" She snatched it as he continued to stare at the drawing.

"Sorry, sorry, it just looked familiar to me, that's all. Erm…"

_Oh, great…he knows._ Chell bit her lip and exhaled, her breath hissing through her teeth.

"…What did you say your name was again…?"

"Chell." Then, letting her pretense fall away, she smirked. "Nice to see you too. Been a while, pal. I'm a bit curious of your being here on Earth while the last time I saw you, you were hurtling toward space…And I'm also ex_treme_ly curious as to how…" she poked his hand, "…this…happened, because I remember you last being a metal ball. An annoying metal ball."

Wheatley's eyebrows shot up as his mouth dropped open. For an entire minute he had just stood there, gaping at her. At last, he finally spoke. "What…you…I can't believe it, but at the same time, you just said that, but it makes no sense and perfect sense, but you, you're talking, I suppose it had to happen sometime, but it really happened, you look so much like you did, but, wait, you're wearing your hair differently, and a hat, it looks so nice that way, love, I like it, but you're here, and I can't wrap my head around tha fact that you're _talking_, you have a very pretty voice, love, it's absolutely gorgeous, but I've forgotten something, I think, oh, yes, an apology, and I suppose an explanation while I'm at it, and it's quite fine if you don't accept it, I suppose, but here it is." He took a deep breath (Chell suspected he was unused to the idea of having to breathe and take breaks between sentences).

She wanted to say, _About time you did, _but the words got stuck in her mouth. So she simply nodded once to him.

"Well, I knew that I'd messed up as soon as I was in space, oh, my, I felt horrible, let me tell you. Absolutely terrible. And there I was, up there, in the big wide open space, and my only companion was so annoying I had to just shut him out, and then I was alone with my thoughts, which of course all led to you, love. And I kept thinking and wondering and pondering, and I thought about what I'd done, and I even wondered if you ever _did _survive…oh, let me tell you, the thought of my stupid mistake being your demise…nasty stuff for my brain, awful. And all I ever wanted to do was tell you sorry, became kind of an obsession, really, me making silly fantasies. Erm!" he said, blushing a bit. Obviously he hadn't meant to say that out loud. He began to ramble on again, but Chell cut him off with a palm on his mouth.

"If I forgive you, will you shut up?"

"Gladly," came the muffled response.

"Okay, I'm not gonna lie. That did hurt. What was I supposed to think, my little wimpy metal friend suddenly turning all boss and trying to kill me?...That disturbs some people. But I now realize that it wasn't really your fault…and I guess GLaDOS wasn't a positive influence…but if you ever do anything like that again, so help me, I will kill you. Got it?" growled Chell, leaning in with a leer as she removed her hand.

"Y—yes. Yup, got it! Haha…" whimpered the blond man, cowering under her fierce gaze.

"Good! In that case, why don't we get McDonald's and go back to my apartment to chat? I'd still love to know where this body came from, and _you _can learn about my exciting year of speech therapy!"

"One question…"

"Unhealthy food that's cheap and tastes good."

"I'm in!"

As they walked together, Chell suddenly wrapped her arms around her friend's torso, throwing him off balance. "Hey, hey, what's wrong?"

"I missed you, moron." Chell honestly didn't care if anyone was watching right now (they were); she was overcome with emotion at seeing her friend which she hadn't felt a second ago.

Wheatley awkwardly patted Chell's head, but he was smiling. "I missed you too, mute."

**By the way. I have, like, no idea how speech therapy would have gone, or how he would appear human (like I said, new at this), so I decided to omit that. Yeah! I like Chelley. But this didn't turn out to be as Chelley-ish as I'd hoped. Oh well. I'm sorry again if this was really bad, but too late now. That's my philosophy. "Too late now!" Haha. Sooo…like…bye.**


End file.
